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I am simply pointing out the absurdity of your non position.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Ideology isn't truth but opinion. It has no place in schools. Facts have a place in schools.

Precisely! But you still fail to see the problem. It’s easy to prove that 2+2=4 is a fact. It is easy to prove that the Union winning the Battle of Gettysburg is a fact. But ask the question why was the Civil War fought, and you get a whole bunch of different opinions that people insist are facts. Who’s version should prevail? Why should any one particular version prevail over another?

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Wrong. When you require one school to accept all students, and allow another school to only cherrypick students with an IQ of at least 120, what do you think is going to happen?

Even if one school is not getting the “cream of the crop,” that doesn’t mean they can’t successfully educate the students they do have. If they are unable to then why should we force people to attend it?

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I haven't been tripping over Atheists in the streets, either.

Your point being?

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Actually, you got that story backwards. The lesbian couple was Constitutionally protected BECAUSE they were at a public school. The school district TRIED to exclude just the lesbian couple from the prom. A court stepped in and decided that this would be discrimination and protected the lesbian couple. The school district had no choice but to treat all students equally (sadly, in their bigotry, they chose to cancel the prom for everybody - which was still a better outcome than canceling it just for the lesbian couple).

The point is that the school in question is being run by assholes. Why should any parent be forced to send their child to a school run by assholes?

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Private schools are far more egregious in that respect, especially given the fact that they are almost exclusively religious (97% in Ohio, for instance). A private school could have denied that couple an education by expelling them - and they routinely, and legally, expel students for the mere suspicion of being gay.

Show me the "better, more accepting" private schools!

Here's one. All it took was for a few people to get off their ass and exercise their freedom rather than whine about it.

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Even if the religious private schools out number the secular one’s that is not the point. The point is, you should have the freedom to send your child to whatever school you prefer – or start one of your own! All I’m asking is that you respect the rights of others to do the same.

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Our Constitution guarantees religious freedom, and if the more extremist Christian schools are allowed, then it follows that Madrassas are also allowed as long as they teach the three Rs that you so insist on.

Madrassas don't teach violence and aren't terrorist organizations any more than fundamentalist Christian schools do; they simply focus on the Koran or Bible.

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Who says you only have to teach one? You can teach all those that are consistent with the facts.

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How do you propose a school hobbled that way go about "successfully educating the students"?

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It was your point, not mine. I think you implied something about homeless people being predominantly Southern Baptist. Not sure how you would know any homeless person's religion at all.

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The point is that the children were protected from these assholes, and that they wouldn't have been protected in a private school.

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By the way - a Federal Judge has now decided that even canceling the prom altogether was illegal.

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Ummmm. Enrollment: SEVEN. That school apparently didn't survive long; the last trace of it that I could find was from 2003, only six years after they started. Schools can't survive unless they are supported by a massive portion of the population.

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My point is that you are TAKING AWAY the right. Starting your own? Yeah, the school for gay students you mentioned above is a great example how well that works.

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Exactly my point. I'm just not sure why you still defend the right of parents to decide whether their children should be allowed to learn to "go out and kill the infidel".

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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How do you propose a school hobbled that way go about "successfully educating the students"?

What makes them hobbled?  Are they only getting kids with IQ below 50?  Such kids would need specialized schools to begin with.  Just because a kid isn’t a genius doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a normal intelligence and can’t be educated.

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It was your point, not mine. I think you implied something about homeless people being predominantly Southern Baptist. Not sure how you would know any homeless person's religion at all.

My point was that you don’t see masses of homeless Southern Baptists so that means, despite whatever educational shortcomings they may impose upon themselves, they are still managing make their way in society just fine.  If they are okay with it, who the hell are we to tell them different?

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The point is that the children were protected from these assholes, and that they wouldn't have been protected in a private school.

The point is that people should have their options expanded, not restricted.  If you don't like a particular private school's philosophy, then don't send your kid there.  But if you don't like the public school's philosophy, why should people be forced to use it?

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By the way - a Federal Judge has now decided that even canceling the prom altogether was illegal.

Good for him.  The government has no business engaging in unwarranted discrimination against it's citizens.

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Ummmm. Enrollment: SEVEN. That school apparently didn't survive long; the last trace of it that I could find was from 2003, only six years after they started. Schools can't survive unless they are supported by a massive portion of the population.

I noticed that you didn't mention anything about the liberal private schools.  Okay, so maybe the gay private school did work that time around but that is not the point.  The point is not how many there are or whether one succeeds while another doesn’t; the point is that people have the freedom to try rather than rely on the government which may or may not go their way.  If you don't have other options, what do you do when the government fails?  What if that judge had ruled the other way?  How much longer would people have to wait for the appeals process?  Why should they have to wait just because people like yourself may not approve of them?  Why can't they have the frredom to do for themselves?
The notion that school's can't survive unless they are supported by a massive portion of the population is silly.  I know of schools in the Southern Tier of New York (both public and private) that have less than twenty students.

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Exactly my point. I'm just not sure why you still defend the right of parents to decide whether their children should be allowed to learn to "go out and kill the infidel".

I don’t.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  one person’s rights end where the next person’s begins.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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I don't have a problem with the state requiering basic education - reading, writing, 'rithmatic - but when we start getting into areas of science, religion, history, etc - areas of deeply held personal conviction, it is quite another matter.

While the study of comparative religion is an elective in many state schools Religion as a subject is not.
I find it interesting that you do not feel that knowledge of science and history are areas that the state has any right to teach.
Religion used to teach us that the earth was the center of the solar system.
Science has shown us that that is not true.
History is a log of what has gone before.
Please explane why you are against this sort of knowledge being dispensed by state sponsored schools?

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It takes considerably more funding when the majority of the students is in the 80-110 range. Private schools can cherrypick the easy-to-educate students.
- Having the "genius" in a mixed environment benefits the remaining students, too.

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By the way, this isn't limited to private schools. Charter schools, magnet schools etc. also have similar impact, as well as the highly localized school funding through property taxes.

By the way, the point here isn't that "schools for geniuses are bad" but that the funding imbalance needs to be addressed and that comparing the educational success of such schools is comparing apples and oranges.

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How many homeless people have you seen last week? How many of them were not Southern Baptists? And how did you find out?

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Earlier you were arguing in favor of abolishing public schools altogether. Quite a different stance.

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Exactly. Score for public schools.

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No, the point is that a school - ONE school - that operated for a few years in Dallas, and a few elementary schools in Berkeley don't help the lesbian in Fulton, Mississippi whose prom was canceled. Fulton, MS - population 3882. The whole school district has only about 250 students at the grade level.

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Re small schools with less than 20 students: you must be referring to rural schools? How many of them are high schools?

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Bravo! So why do you defend the rights of parents to infringe on their children's right to a quality education?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b
Then address the funding imbalance.

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How many homeless people have you seen last week? How many of them were not Southern Baptists? And how did you find out?

I haven't seen any homeless people around my stomping grounds.  If the majority, or even a significant portion of homeless are Southern Babtists then point me to a study that says so.  Otherwise, the point is made.

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Re small schools with less than 20 students: you must be referring to rural schools? How many of them are high schools?

Most of them are all grades.

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Exactly my point. It's quite easy, actually: simply require that private schools accept any student who applies, using the same standards as public schools. The funding imbalance will disappear in no time.

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You were the one who made this nonsensical claim without ever presenting a shred of evidence for it.

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Care to share any data? Or even just an anecdotal example?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Exactly my point. It's quite easy, actually: simply require that private schools accept any student who applies, using the same standards as public schools. The funding imbalance will disappear in no time.

If the private schools were forced to use the same standards as the public schools then they’d be just the same (which in most cases means just as shitty) as the public schools.

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You were the one who made this nonsensical claim without ever presenting a shred of evidence for it.

And you are the one who keeps harping on it.  The point was, and remains, that the vast majority of Southern Baptists are not homeless and therefore we can conclude that they’re education is not hampering them from finding employment and surviving in contemporary society.

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Care to share any data? Or even just an anecdotal example?

I’m not really sure what you’re looking for here or how it relates to the matter at hand.

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Actually, the point is that they ARE just as "shitty" to use your word - the only reason test scores are higher is that these schools are allowed to pick only the best-scoring students.

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Now that is a completely different statement. The vast majority of {Atheists|Southern Baptists|Muslims|Musicians|people with freckles|whatever group} is not homeless, simply because most PEOPLE aren't homeless. That statement, of course, does not allow any conclusions at all.

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Your original claim was that for some magical reason, you could read the mind of every homeless person you ran into and somehow knew their religious affiliation.

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 And you claimed that through this magical divine inspiration, Southern Baptists were supposedly underrepresented among homeless people. On that, I am calling BS.

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In fact, if anything, Southern Baptists are probably more likely to be homeless than Atheists because Atheists tend to be more educated (as measured in college degrees).

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You claimed that a school with 7 students provided an education equivalent to a high school with hundreds of students and used these rural schools as an example. What I'm interested in is:

- Names of towns with such schools
- College performance of graduates from such schools.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Actually, the point is that they ARE just as "shitty" to use your word - the only reason test scores are higher is that these schools are allowed to pick only the best-scoring students.

How do you know that they are just as shitty? 

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You claimed that a school with 7 students provided an education equivalent to a high school with hundreds of students and used these rural schools as an example. What I'm interested in is:

- Names of towns with such schools
- College performance of graduates from such schools.

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Really, the better question is: how do you know they aren't?

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You were the one who claimed that parents could simply start their own school if they didn't like what was available,

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and offered these vaguely described "schools in the Southern Tier of New York" as evidence.

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Yet you have been unable to even NAME a single such school, let alone give any information about them at all.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Really, the better question is: how do you know they aren't?

Precisely.  You don’t know if they are or aren’t.  So why should you be the one who gets to decided who goes and who doesn’t?

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You were the one who claimed that parents could simply start their own school if they didn't like what was available,

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Yet you have been unable to even NAME a single such school, let alone give any information about them at all.

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See above - as long as public schools receive the same funding as private schools (if necessary even through a tax on tuitions) to allow them to remain competitive, I'd have a lot less problems with it.

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No, you clearly argued that they already can and that it was practical to do so.

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And Amish schools are examples for "surviving without support from a massive portion of the population" why? Amish schools are examples for small schools providing an education comparable to major high schools how?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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See above - as long as public schools receive the same funding as private schools (if necessary even through a tax on tuitions) to allow them to remain competitive, I'd have a lot less problems with it.

A tax on tuition?  That would price some people out of the private school market.  The rich would still be able to afford it but middle class parents would be hit hard – thus restricting their options.  I see no fairness in that.  

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And Amish schools are examples for "surviving without support from a massive portion of the population" why? Amish schools are examples for small schools providing an education comparable to major high schools how?

Why does it have to be comparable to a major high school?  A school needs to serve the educational needs of it students.  All students are not the same and will not have the same needs.  What makes a major high school the standard with which to judge all others?

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Au contraire; this scheme would provide the funding for a quality education to ALL schools, even those in poor and middle-class neighborhoods that are already priced out of the private-school market today.

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You were the one who suggested that gay students should avoid harassment by attending a tiny school specifically for gays -

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and according to this response, obviously it is perfectly OK that these same small-gay-school-students receive an inferior education compared to a major high school. That was the point.

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Original NathaninTexas


I feel a need to intervene here.   As someone who is pursuing a post grad degree in history I should tell you a few things


Well shit howdy fire away sonny...I am always interested in the opinions of post grad degree candidates.
1. History is always written by the winners of wars and the people in power. It is never written by the losers or the oppressed.

So you are all set to study lies...interesting degree choice

and more importantly

2. Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

Oh my ....you have me right on the edge of my seat....what is the other half....
????



I would also postulate to you that the men that discovered the earth wasn't the center of the universe were devoutly religious men and were formerly apologized to by the church after their discovery was generally accepted.

This was how many years after the fact?


   Copernicus and Galileo were both very devout Catholics.

So was Torquemada

before you go about damning religion I'll quote one of the most significant men in democratic history.

" If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?" - Benjamin Franklin.

Of course you know what ol Bennie meant when he said that because you have read all of his personal letters and other correspondence...yeah right.
One would have thought that you would have learned how to do research as an undergrad.  You know that stuff that real students do to decipher the truth out of history.